


There's no point (if I don't do it as me)

by Elkian (SuperImposed)



Category: Fire Emblem Series, Fire Emblem: Kakusei | Fire Emblem: Awakening
Genre: Canon Compliant, Gen, Kinda, Magical Sex Change Potions, Transitioning, no seriously, they're canon, trans!Vaike
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-23
Updated: 2014-03-23
Packaged: 2018-01-16 16:47:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 705
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1354564
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SuperImposed/pseuds/Elkian
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Right, but the problem isn't me. It's that other folks are small minded. It's a stupid way to think, and I aim to prove it. I'll out fight every man on the field, but there's no point if I don't do it as me."</p>
            </blockquote>





	There's no point (if I don't do it as me)

**Author's Note:**

> Idea came to me. Too good to resist, really.
> 
> Interesting that Sully's line about NOT transitioning works so well for a transition fic.
> 
> (I banged this out in like forty minutes so it might be a bit rough.)
> 
> Tumblr: http://elkian.tumblr.com/post/80433399517/theres-no-point-if-i-dont-do-it-as-me

 

At (probably) twelve years old, it was already clear that Vaike would like to kiss a village lass or two. Not much of a surprise, really. Of course, finding a girl who felt the same was a little more difficult, and the few who did tended to change their minds as soon as the fighter got shirtless.

Vaike didn’t have the words or know-how to explain exactly _why_ , but that reaction really pissed her off.

\---------

Half a year later, and the scrapper had an answer, both to the _why_ and the _what_ \- that is, what to do about it.

It took some saving, stealing, and scraping, but eventually Vaike was able to afford the pungent brew, and walked out of the apothecary a new man.

...for a month, anyways.

\---------

Fourteen and scrappy as ever, Vaike doesn’t have much interest in what this froofy noble priss has to say. Yet still he shows up in the square, not entirely sure why, leaning against the corner of a shop and staring up at the dias. He expected to scoff - as much as The Vaike scoffs, anyways - because this girl doesn’t know hardship, she doesn’t know _pain_.

But she does. In the lines of her eyes, her body, her carefully-chosen words, there’s something that Vaike didn’t expect to see. He doesn’t exactly know how to describe it or what to do about it, and ends up doing… nothing.

For a good week after that, Vaike, and a ton of other back-alley brats and scrappers and similar scum that make up the gang, do nothing. They don’t start fights, they don’t harass drunks, they hardly steal - and is that shopkeeper turning a blind eye? Did that guard just wink? The whole town is remarkably peaceful, quiet… soft.

Vaike doesn’t know what to make of it... but he likes it.

\----------

Joining this stupid, noble... **noble** is the last thing Vaike expected. But once he got a taste of it, the man’s charisma, his even-handedness with all, his idiotic _likeability_ , The Vaike just couldn’t resist. Something in the prince made Vaike want to work harder, to be a better him, a better man.

The official army pay doesn’t hurt, and the scrapper can afford to buy his potion, enough for almost monthly use. He could. But he doesn’t. Because despite the overwhelming popular opinion? Vaike is not an idiot.

Instead he saves. And saves. He ignores the odd joke at his expense, he trains harder, and he saves up. And if a fellow soldier breaks heads on his behalf, and he makes a new friend or two, well, it makes the training all the easier. He jokes at Stahl and spars with Sully and saves a spot in the mess line for Kellam. His coin purse is starting to bulge almost as much as his muscles, and for all his pride in being the foremost gangleader back home?

Vaike has never been happier.

\---------

It takes a little over a year, which sounds like a lot, but is actually quite short. Because it is expensive, but Vaike has never, _never_ been afraid of hard work, and he doesn’t spend money on anything else.

(Okay, maybe he slips a few coins into Ricken’s purse when the kid starts looking down. And helps Sumia replace some equipment. And maybe one time, he pitched in to buy an extremely nice set of tack for Frederick’s birthday. But other than that...)

\---------

Vaike fingers the collar nervously, digits skittering half-consciously over the flat expanse of his chest. He **wants** this, a lot. More than anything, maybe. But he’s still used to the penny-potions, still worried that someday soon, the spell will run out and he’ll go back to before and maybe (probably definitely), everyone will laugh at him.

But it won’t run out and he won’t revert and he KNOWS he has friends here, people who would never laugh at him even if it did and he did. The knowledge makes something swell under his breastbone, beneath the even beat of his anxious fingers.

He gets a little choked up.

He definitely does not cry, though.

With a final breath to compose himself, Vaike The Fighter hefts his axe and steps out to meet the new day.

 


End file.
